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2)The OMB/Census Bureau only updates the UA every ten years. We can use other sources but that isn't something officially recognized...
FWIW, this is the most updated UA estimate that I've found. It doesn't update all UAs but all of the larger ones are updated yearly and a new one will come out soon. While not "official", this is probably a good barometer.
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I think New Orleans has always been perceived as greater than what it is on paper and statistics. However I think it is fair to say that it belongs in the bottom of tier 2 or the top of tier 3. I see why people rate new Orleans so high. Despite the issues the city has it somehow is able to captivate and draw in a lot of people. People like to say the crime is out of control but there are many people who live happy productive lives there and love it. I was there this past weekend and I have been to a lot of big cities such as Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando and New Orleans feels just as big and important when you're there on the ground in the middle of the action in the busy streets with people everywhere. Houston's downtown is dead in comparison to New Orleans. Heck, I was in downtown Los Angeles and it was quite dead as well... Again I am talking about perception here. I believe its just that people have a lot of respect for the city and its former glory.
Also its actually still in recovery mode from a storm that nearly took it off the map and it is still able to rival cities like Nashville and Orlando. So I think its quite fair and understandable why people would rate it high and important.
I think New Orleans has always been perceived as greater than what it is on paper and statistics. However I think it is fair to say that it belongs in the bottom of tier 2 or the top of tier 3. I see why people rate new Orleans so high. Despite the issues the city has it somehow is able to captivate and draw in a lot of people. People like to say the crime is out of control but there are many people who live happy productive lives there and love it. I was there this past weekend and I have been to a lot of big cities such as Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando and New Orleans feels just as big and important when you're there on the ground in the middle of the action in the busy streets with people everywhere. Houston's downtown is dead in comparison to New Orleans. Heck, I was in downtown Los Angeles and it was quite dead as well... Again I am talking about perception here. I believe its just that people have a lot of respect for the city and its former glory.
Also its actually still in recovery mode from a storm that nearly took it off the map and it is still able to rival cities like Nashville and Orlando. So I think its quite fair and understandable why people would rate it high and important.
Nashville, New Orleans and Orlando all have enormous tourist drawing power. The same is true for Miami. These cities have enormous name recognition due to this visibility and it's reflected in perceptions and in actual "feet on the ground" when it comes to active nightlife, etc.
Hampton Roads VA seems like it punches below it's weight for a metro area of 1.8 million, although it's a nice place to visit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Parhe
El Paso is definitely of higher importance than a few of those, while the McAllen area is nearly on level with Tier 5.
I would put El Paso in tier 3 or 4 since the city does have a lot to offer as well as a high population growth rate for a Southwestern city, though I doubt El Paso qualifies for being a "Southern City". Same applies for McAllen Texas. It would also rank in the tier 3 or 4 catagory since it's MSA pushes 850,000 with a region over 3+ million.
Tier 5
Birmingham, Jacksonville, Oklahoma City, Memphis
My list revised below, accounting for the similarities in size of economy. I took into account both metro and UA size, but size is variant. You can be a large area that dosent match the economic output of similarly-sized regions (ex. Tampa, whose economy is considerably smaller than the immediate four cities above and below its population size). Thus, as many people have noted, Tampa punches below its weight class for its size. I don't think anyone truly believes it's in the same class as Denver, Baltimore, etc, therefore Tampa has to be compared downwards to cities that are more alike in economic might...
Or, you could have a city that is much smaller than all of its immediate size peers (Durham), but has a large economy for its weight class. Durham's economy blows away every city in its peripheral 15% by population, with no exceptions. Is it fair to say that Durham is at the same level as Chattanooga or Jackson? Obviously it performs at a higher level economically than those cities, and at a higher level in range of amenities...
So, while I accept that there are many ways to compare cities, right now I believe the best way to group cities are according to weight of economy, rather than weight of population. I have each city listed in each tier by order of GDP. Now, I'm not sure that's how I'd list them all given consideration of other important criteria, but I think GDP gives me a baseline for which to group cities...
Note: I'm specifically noting the cities, which break up multi-nodal metros. Some places like Tampa-St. Pete and Norfolk-Virginia Beach are inseparable because the two core cities in many ways function as one city; however, Norfolk-Virginia Beach can be separated from the Peninsula (Newport News-Hampton), which gives a more accurate depiction of its size and strength. It's not a secret that, taken fully, Hampton Roads is an underperforming metro to metros of comparable size. Separating the Peninsula from the Southside paints a clearer picture of where Norfolk City fits in the larger realm of cities...
Tier 2 ($100 billion-plus)
Charlotte, Tampa, Fort Worth, Orlando, Austin, Nashville, San Antonio
Tier 3 ($64-80 billion)
New Orleans, Raleigh, Richmond, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Louisville, Jacksonville, Norfolk, Birmingham
Tier 4 (only cities between $45-64 billion)
Tulsa, Baton Rouge
Tier 5 ($30-45 billion)
Durham, Greensboro, Little Rock, Knoxville, Columbia, Greenville, Charleston
.........
It goes without saying that there is a massive gap from Tier 1 to Tier 2. The back end of Tier 2 almost blurs with the top end of Tier 3, and some of those cities are certainly interchangeable in rank. While not "massive", I think there is a considerable gap from Tier 3 to Tier 4. And a smaller gap from Tier 4 to Tier 5 but a gap nonetheless...
Even if weighed by size, Tulsa is a hard city to figure because it is 11% larger than Greenville, the next closest smaller city, and 14% smaller than Birmingham, the next closest larger city. Economically, Tulsa is too large to be considered a peer city to any Tier 5 city, and across other criteria generally presents and performs at a higher level, overall, than any of those cities. The reverse is also true when comparing Tulsa to larger cities--I don't think it's a stretch to say that Birmingham, Norfolk, Jacksonville, are higher performing cities. Tulsa is in a good spot...
Baton Rouge and Tulsa are the only two Southern cities within a GDP range between $45-64 billion. That is a massive gap, and clearly, both outweigh Tier 5 cities by a considerable margin. I do believe that other criteria taken into account, Baton Rouge is closer to a Tier 5 city, but even then, it would likely still be within the first two cities of a lower tier anyway. Economically it is in another level and deserves a stronger placement; it was actually one of my more surprising finds, though I've long considered Baton Rouge to be stronger than peers by size such as Little Rock....
There are other cities mentioned up thread that while there is credence to placing them in Tier 5, overall, they just don't stack up. This list is not gospel but in keeping consistent with an economic theme, I think presents the best depiction of the Top 30 cities in the South...
Smallest Tier 1 city is Dallas (minus Fort Worth) at ~4.772 million, which is 28.32% smaller than the largest city, Houston. In Tier 2, Nashville is 38.49% smaller than Tampa but hardly no one would say that Nashville and Tampa aren't comparable. Birmingham is 20.91% smaller than Jacksonville, the largest city in its tier. Baton Rouge is 15.39% smaller than Tulsa, which is the narrowest size differential, and Durham is 36.91% smaller than Greenville. My point is to further illustrate that grouping cities by size may be the most common deference to how we compare cities, but it's not the most accurate. Plenty of smaller cities compare very well to larger cities, Boston is probably the best example of a city that stacks up very well to larger competition...
Last edited by murksiderock; 03-05-2017 at 06:13 AM..
If you're ranking these by the size of the economy, then it should be either Houston and DFW in Tier 1 and Atlanta and Miami in tier 2 or Houston and DFW in tier 1a and Atlanta and Miami in tier 1b.
Hampton Roads VA seems like it punches below it's weight for a metro area of 1.8 million, although it's a nice place to visit.
I would put El Paso in tier 3 or 4 since the city does have a lot to offer as well as a high population growth rate for a Southwestern city, though I doubt El Paso qualifies for being a "Southern City". Same applies for McAllen Texas. It would also rank in the tier 3 or 4 catagory since it's MSA pushes 850,000 with a region over 3+ million.
I only say that because it is really difficult to bring Hampton Roads into the conversation considering how far it has to go to realize it's full potential. Which is like, light years.
Too much to mention but these are my pet peeves
Monolithic economy here with an over-reliance on the military and the federal government
Low wages; I'd probably make more money back in Ohio doing the same type of work
BS reasons for the low wages; apparently Navy Wives, etc that can afford to work for less ruin it for everyone else
Lack of cultural diversity
Lack of professional sports
Lack of adequate venues to even have a large event
Lousy public transportation - yes, there isn't any sufficient rail coverage, but the bus sucks as well
High housing costs, given what those low wages are here
Schizophrenic drivers that do a lot of illegal, backwards, maneuvers and then have a problem with you for passing them by
Architecturally, built in environment and urban infrastructure about the ugliest thing I've seen except for exurbs in New Jersey
And I could go on and on. What is the population here, 1.8 million? Yes, we could be one city but the individual cities themselves are not operating at their peak potential and I seriously doubt that putting them under the same umbrella would really change anything.
Yet another example of how the Triangle being split hurts its visibility in the region.
Similarly, Fort Worth should be combined with Dallas and Winston-Salem (not listed at all) should be combined with Greensboro.
I think there's more of an argument for having Greensboro and Winston-Salem separate, mostly because they each have their own spheres of influence and they don't really have economically viable suburbs that bleed into each other. The dynamic that exists within the Triangle and the Metroplex doesn't exist in the Triad, at least not to the same degree.
I think a stronger argument could be made for including Spartanburg with Greenville, which would boost it up a tier in murksiderock's ranking.
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